Most Americans Believe Miscarriage Myths

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Miscarriages are common, but the majority of Americans still
think they occur rarely, a new survey finds.

The nationwide online survey found that 55 percent of people in
the United States believe that miscarriage happens in 5 percent
or less of all pregnancies. But in reality, miscarriages end 15
to 20 percent of reported pregnancies, according to the
researchers.

Miscarriage myths affect more than just people in the United
States; they are a universal problem, said the study's senior
author, Dr. Zev Williams, the director of the Program for Early
and Recurrent Pregnancy Loss at the Albert Einstein College of
Medicine and Montefiore Health System in New York City. [ Blossoming
Body: 8 Odd Changes That Happen During Pregnancy ]

People tend to treat miscarriage as a taboo subject, and many
women blame themselves for losing a pregnancy, Williams said.

"I've taken care of sisters who didn't know that each of them
were having recurrent miscarriages," because they didn't tell
each other, Williams told Live Science. "But you don't see that
with anything else. I ask for family histories, so everyone knows
when their family has heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer's.
But miscarriages, people don't talk about them."

Here's a look at five lessons about miscarriages doctors and the
public could learn, based on what the researchers found to be
common misconceptions about miscarriages in their survey, set to
be published on Monday (May 11) in the journal Obstetrics &
Gynecology.

In reality, about 1 out of 5 pregnancies, or between 750,000 and
1 million pregnancies yearly in the United States,
end in miscarriage.

But according to the survey, 10 percent of participants said they
thought that fewer than 2 percent of all pregnancies ended in
miscarriage.

This misconception was 2.5 times more common among men than
women, the researchers found.

One possible reason many people hold such mistaken beliefs is
that few people talk about miscarriages, Williams said.

2. People don't understand its causes

The majority of miscarriages happen for medical or genetic
reasons. For instance, about 60 percent of miscarriages occur
because of
aneuploidy, which is the presence of an incorrect number of
chromosomes. Other causes can be related to the mother's health
conditions, such as whether there are structural abnormalities in
the uterus, or if she has an endocrine disorder or an autoimmune
disorder.

But 22 percent of the survey participants incorrectly said that
lifestyle choices, including drug, alcohol or tobacco use during
pregnancy, were the single most common causes of miscarriage, the
researchers found. Men were 2.6 times more likely to think this
than women, the study found.

People also falsely attributed miscarriages to other factors. For
instance, the majority of participants said that a stressful
event (76 percent) or longstanding stress (74 percent) could
cause a miscarriage.

A large number of participants said that a miscarriage could be
caused by lifting a heavy object (64 percent of respondents),
having a
sexually transmitted disease in the past (41 percent), using
an intrauterine device in the past (28 percent), using oral
contraception in the past (22 percent) or getting into an
argument (21 percent), the researchers found.

Williams said he treated one patient who said that, while
pregnant, she had doubts about whether she'd be a good mother.
"She miscarried a couple of days later" and was tormented by the
thought that she miscarried because she "didn't want it enough,"
he said. In reality, there is no way that such thoughts could
bring on a miscarriage.

About 15 percent of the survey participants said they had been
personally affected by miscarriage, and these participants
answered additional questions about their experience, the
researchers said.

Among those affected by a miscarriage, 47 percent said they
felt
guilty, 41 percent said they felt like they did something
wrong, 28 percent reported feeling ashamed, and 38 percent said
they felt like they could have prevented it somehow, the
researchers found.

Most of them (57 percent) were not told what might have caused
the miscarriage. Some were told, "It just happens," or "We don't
know."

But knowing the possible cause can be helpful, the researchers
wrote. A majority of respondents, 88 percent, said they would
want to know the cause, even if it wasn't something they could
have prevented, the researchers found.

Among the people who were given a reason for the miscarriage, 19
percent fewer felt as if they were to blame, compared to those
who were not given a reason, the researchers found.

Of the people who miscarried, 74 percent said they received
emotional support from the people they told, but only 45 percent
said the medical community had provided adequate emotional
support.

Celebrities can also help. Of survey participants who miscarried,
28 percent said that public figures who shared their miscarriage
stories, including Ann Romney, the wife of former presidential
candidate Mitt Romney, and actress Gwyneth Paltrow, helped ease
their feelings of isolation, the study found.

However, friends helped even more. When a friend revealed a
miscarriage, 46 percent of study participants said they felt less
isolation after their own miscarriages.

"When people start talking about it, it has a very positive
effect," Williams said.

"Because it's such a taboo subject, you don't see advocacy for
it, you don't see these support groups, you don't see people
lobbying Congress to get more funding," he said. "And so research
in miscarriage is dwarfed by all of these other conditions, even
in women's health."

Even doctors may unknowingly discourage open discussion.

"When a woman does become pregnant, we tell them keep it quiet,"
he said. "The subtext to that is you might miscarry, and you
don't want people to find out about it."